Chapter 26. THE PACT
(Zayn)
He was probably doing it on purpose to punish me. Twenty minutes. I had been waiting for Noah at The Patio, a local bar, for the past twenty fucking minutes. He left me on read for several hours before replying to my texts. He wouldn’t pick up the phone either. A double blue tick that perfectly said, “Fuck you, Zayn,” without even saying it.
But I’d wait. I was patient.
Ten minutes later, Noah showed up. He wore gray sweats and a black T-shirt—zero point on effort—and his facial expression was as bitter as the IPA I was drinking.
“Hey, thanks for coming,” I said.
“Sure, I had nothing better to do.”
My eyes probably rolled to the back of my head. Noah getting angry was never a fun sight. He’d act like a thirteen-year-old every time.
“What did you want to talk about that was so important?” he asked.
“Really, man? You can’t think about a single thing we need to talk about?”
Like a kid.
Every. Single. Time.
“I mean…if you want to apologize, I’m all ears.”
“And what exactly should I be apologizing for?” I knew what I did wasn’t right, but it wasn’t wrong either. Sienna and Noah weren’t exclusive, and although going for the girl my friend was interested in was a bit of a dick move, I really liked Sienna. And I met her first. But I never thought I’d see her again. Maybe if I could explain myself and he understood…
“OK. That was harsh. Listen, I won’t apologize for what happened in Rye.” The sound of the chair scraping against the floor made me jump. Noah was leaving the boat. “Hey, wait. Where are you going? I’m not done.”
“If you think I’m going to stay here to listen to you talk about what amazing sex you’re having with Sienna, you’re delusional,” he exclaimed.
“Noah. I’m not sleeping with Sienna.” Liar . “Wait, man. I haven’t finished my apology!” I shouted.
I’m not sure what made him stop. The fact that I said I wasn’t having sex with her or that I was going to apologize.
“If that was the start of an apology, it’s the worst one I’ve ever heard. You need to work on your skills, dude.” Shaking his head, he returned to the barstool and placed his left arm on the counter.
I ordered him another IPA before I resumed my apology.
“Look. Let me say what I want to say, and then you can shout at me as much as you like, but we need to move forward somehow, Noah. I hate that we’re not hanging out together and that you only talk to me when Ander is around.”
He stayed silent, so I proceeded with my case.
“You know how much I liked the girl I met in New York, even before finding out that the girl was Sienna. And when I saw her at The Cave…shit, Noah, I knew that I couldn’t throw away the chance to be with her again. I know that I’m selfish and an unreasonable bastard, but I’m obsessed with her. I can’t stop thinking about her. But you’re also my friend, and I don’t want to lose you. I know I was a dick in Rye, that I didn’t think of your feelings. Please tell me what to do, but don’t tell me to stop chasing her because I won’t promise you that. If she wants me, she can have me. All of me.” I’ve never been a man of grand speeches, so this was a first. Since the moment I saw Sienna on Noah’s birthday, I couldn’t stop it. The feelings, the need to make her mine.
“Shit, Zayn. I knew you liked Sienna, but I never thought you felt that way about her. You’ve always been a player, so I assumed you were just thriving on the challenge.”
Noah wasn’t wrong. I’d always been a player, and Zayn, the player , was who Sienna met in Manhattan. However, to my surprise, I really enjoyed her company that night, the conversation, the jokes, her laugh, and the sex. Fuck . She was addictive. I don’t know how many times I’d fucked my hand the past week just thinking about her tight pussy.
“I know, man. I don’t know. I can’t imagine how pissed you probably were when you found us in the kitchen.” I hope he didn’t see much because I would have seen red if it had been me. What a hypocrite…
Noah tittered and shook his head.
“Did I say something funny?” I was confused.
“If I tell you something, do you promise you won’t use it against me?” he asked, chuckling.
I nodded.
Noah took a sip from his beer and continued. “In fact, I wasn’t that pissed and that pissed me off.”
Did I say confused?
“You may think I only saw a bit of the performance, but the truth is that I was there from the very beginning.”
“WHAT?” I yelled. Almost everyone in the bar turned around to check where the shriek was coming from and why. I lowered my voice and asked him, “What do you mean you were there from the beginning?”
Noah sighed.
“I mean what I said. When I saw you two go at it…I just couldn’t stop watching. My feet were glued to the floor, and if I’m frank, my cock was hard. Really hard. Hard to the point that I considered putting my hand inside my pants and jerking off from the shadows like a fucking voyeur.”
I’d never seen Noah blush, but his pink cheeks gave him away. His beer was almost untouched.
“Let me get this straight. You’ve been mad at me this entire week when, in fact, seeing me and Sienna turned you on?”
“Yeah. Something like that. But I was pissed too. I’m still pissed. I also like Sienna a lot, and although I didn’t have a chance to talk to her about exclusivity, you went behind my back and fucked her when I was under the same roof. It’s not my fault that seeing you both turned me on. An unexpected side effect.”
I appreciated Noah’s honesty, but it was clear that we were unwilling to give up on Sienna.
“I guess we’ll wait and see what she decides. I propose a truce and a pact. Whoever she picks, the other one won’t get mad and blindside the chosen one. Deal?” I extended my hand.
“Deal,” Noah replied, shaking my hand.
May the odds be in my favor.
* * *
When Noah and I arrived at the apartment, Ander and Sienna were perched on the kitchen peninsula, looking confused while reading several documents scattered on the counter.
“What are you guys doing?” I asked.
“Ander found some documents in his dad’s office and took photos. We’re just going through them. Do you want to help us?”
We dug into every document for three hours, hoping to uncover helpful information. Ander had told us how he stumbled upon these papers after talking to his dad about the CEO position, but our efforts seemed useless without knowing what we were looking for.
“Look. It doesn’t make sense,” Ander blurted. “Some of these documents mention several lines of investigation with additional budget allocated to them, but when I look at the R&D pipeline, these aren’t included.” Ander had put aside several budget authorizations that apparently could not be found in the R&D report. “See? Here. Your dad signed these five documents, but when you look at the summary report, they’re not mentioned,” Ander commented while pointing at a document showing records of all Cos Pharmaceuticals’ research projects from 2010 to 2015.
“Maybe these projects were stopped, and that’s why they’re not there,” Noah stated while snatching four Budweiser cans from the fridge and handing them around.
“I thought about that too, but these other projects here say ‘terminated,’ so if they were stopped, it should say. They would be here.” Ander kept flipping through the documents, but he couldn’t spot any papers discussing the reasons behind those projects getting axed, assuming they were indeed terminated.
“Maybe you can ask your contact at Cos Pharma for any details. You should have access to that info.” I glanced at Sienna, but she appeared to ignore my comment.
“Wait a minute. What the actual fuck?!” Sienna burst out, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Why is Professor James Reed’s name here?” Sienna gestured toward one of the budget allocation approvals that had caught Ander’s attention. Under the section labeled “Research Team Structure,” it read “Research Assistant Dr. James Reed.”
“Who’s Professor James Reed?” Noah asked, but everyone ignored him.
“How do you know it’s him? There must be thousands of James Reeds in the United States.” Ander made a good point, so I grabbed my phone and quickly searched for Professor Reed’s profile on the Stanford University website. It only took me a few clicks to find what I wanted.
“It is. Check this out,” I said while showing my phone screen to the group. Every single lecturer at Stanford had a profile under the Staff section with details about their professional career and merits. It was a long shot, but the information was there. From 2013 until 2016, Professor James Reed worked at Cos Pharmaceuticals. After that, he was employed as an assistant professor at Columbia University in New York before being offered a position at Stanford this year.
“Shit.” Sienna sighed. “If he worked for my dad, how come he’s never mentioned that to me?” We didn’t have an answer for her, so we just stayed quiet. “I guess I need to have a conversation with him tomorrow. I’ll speak with Peter, too, but I think including the CFO in the call would be best. He should know if there was a budget allocation toward these projects. He has been in the company for longer than I remember, so I’m sure he worked for my father around these dates.”
At least we now had a plan in place. Perhaps Professor Reed could share valuable insights from his time at Cos Pharma. I only worried this lead would turn out to be a dead end.